Minus 3 Degrees

It was -3 degrees Fahrenheit just before dinner the other night.

Not the air temperature, instead it was the temperature at which water vapor would reach saturation in the air and be squeezed out as water drops, aka dew. In other words, the dew point was minus 3 degrees.

Humidity is complicated. Another way to measure it is by a ratio -- the percent of the maximum water carrying capacity of the air. That's relative humidity. And the other afternoon when the dew point temperature was negative, the air held 8% of the maximum it could hold in water vapor molecules.

Eight percent relative humidity! That's dry even for Santa Fe. My plants don't like it.

It didn't feel bad to me. It was nice, the day was sunny and cool and rather pleasant. But at that humidity level we'll all be crackled dust crumbs shortly. It rose as evening came on, but the humidity measurements by any method remained excessively low.

It's not just that we get so little rain here, it's dry air. Awfully dry.